14 March 2007

Allen Ginsberg

The poem as an equation (a machine) reproducing in verbal images the visual and other images of the dream . . . reproducing the elements which juxtaposed gave me the awe & terror & knowledge in the dream — successfully such an ideal poem could reproduce that “petite sensation” in the reader. . . .

Setting up two (images) points (with a gap) separate in time and showing the distance between them:

Examples

1The host with someone indistinctConverses at the door apart,The nightingales are singing nearThe Convent of the Sacred Heart,

. . . Actually attaining an inner secret Time shock, the result of telescoping time by setting up two or more image points separated with a wide gap showing distance between them, the jump or interval or ellipsis of consciousness: a sort of mystical eclipse of Time arrived at thru the science of presenting clearly images showing change. . . .

The parallel between Cezanne’s theory and poetry theory — to present to the mind’s eye two equally strong images without editorial or rhetorical connection — same as without traditional perspective lines, for the effect of the juxtaposition: the resulting pun or ellipsis of Space. . . .

. . . The ellipses between 2 points in the mind’s eye should show the finality of time in no uncertain terms . . . The clearer & starker & barer, the more sensational the Eclipse. . . .

Ellipsis in event gives rise to the grief-realization of time, or the cold shiver of eternity . . .

Ellipsis in syntax — dropping of articles, connectives, sawdust of the reason [CP: my italics] — to join images as they are joined in the mind: only thus can two images connect like wires and spark . . . [I] need to trap sensations and collect the fragments which give rise to them, by any means, reconstructing [sensations] in images. This means, events in time perceived, giving rise to a subjective emotion, illuminating time. . . .